Social Networking and SEOcialista Revolution

Contrary to popular belief, revolutions do not generally happen when the exploited masses rise up to take power away from the ruling elites. Revolutions almost never happen that way. Revolts might, but not society changing revolution. The exploited masses have traditionally been too busy struggling to keep themselves and their families alive to bother with the theoretical nonsense political or social upheaval involves. Revolts tend to end quickly. Revolutions change the world.

Revolution does not have to be violent it simply has to substantially alter the old order. We are in the middle of a very real revolution, one best noted by Time Magazine when it named YOU (me too I hope, one hates feeling left out of such things) as its Person of the Year for 2006. To be successful, revolutions tend to require the sustained efforts of the hardworking middle and merchant class. Thatâ€™s the group made up of butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and merchants of all stripes. If you are reading these words in this blog, you are likely one of those oh-so leisured folks who without even thinking about it all that much, are working to change the world. No wonder YOU were named person of the year.

In 600 words or less, here is what YOU are doing, how it serves to further the cause of this extraordinary revolution and how that revolution has affected the practice of SEO. The Internet is a market driven environment. That marketplace is global and is made up of several types of entities.

YOU (which is the new euphemism for the collective WE) have forced change in the way information is presented. Because YOU have a hundred thousand other things to do with your time, YOU do not have time to wade through lists of results to find information. It now comes to you.

As an example, I recommended a feed from real estate engine Zillow.com to a friend of mine who is looking for a home in Louisiana. This friend does not have a lot of spare time on her hands and does not have the schedule or temperament required to deal with a real estate agent. Sheâ€™s a bit nutty too but thatâ€™s another matter. Iâ€™m not sure if she is going to find her place using Zillow but it offers her options that might make the search faster. Zillow, and other information sources like it, exist because YOUsers like YOU want them to.

There are a rapidly growing number of direct or interactive feed information services out there. Collectively they are referred to as Web2.0 technologies. By in large, YOU have adopted Web2.0 technologies to the point the distinction is almost meaningless. Web2.0 is simply the Web. Thatâ€™s revolutionary.

The days of information mono-feed are over and by adopting and adapting the Web as an interactive space YOU are responsible for the proliferation of even more information.

Now, there is a point in every revolution where various interest groups attempt to assert their influence for good or for ill. That usually happens when things have calmed down a bit and everyone gets a sense of how the new order is structured. As this is a commercially driven communications revolution, this is the point where we (not the collective WE but the professional we) come in.

That is sort of what search marketers actually do for our clients. We assert their influence. It is our job to get their voices heard amid the din of the enormous public market.

Every day, new direct-feed or interactive-feed information sources come online designed to offer information to individuals (YOU) based on what you say you need. At the same time, YOU are able to create your own media and share it with other YOUsers. YOU might even be communicating about a product offered by a client of ours, if we take the time to give YOU something to talk about.

There are a group of search marketers who are quickly becoming renowned experts in getting YOU to talk about subjects they have some interest in. I call them the SEOcialistas because of their guerilla tactics and uncanny ability to do so much with so little. Their frightening talent calls out to be rewarded with a funny name.

A good SEOcialista can get attention like nobody elseâ€™s business. Part of their strategy involves link-building through link-baiting but in the end itâ€™s all about establishing a recognized and well referred profile for their client. The original and sustaining goal of search engine optimization is to attract traffic. Traffic comes from where the people (YOU) are.

YOU are driving the market right now. If YOU decide to leave MySpace or YouTube enmasse, both networks are expensive technologies without an audience. On the other hand, if YOU make the social networks huge, YOU are going to drive the growth of the SEOcialistas. That in itself is a good thing because the SEOcialistas are the ones driving the evolution of search marketing.